Baraza

The PopTech Fellows  program is sadly over – it was amazing! Now we are in for a rollercoaster with  the Pop!Tech Conference. It brings together World changing people, projects and ideas. The conference officially starts today and I’m on the line up today! I’m so thrilled to have been invited to be part of our special Wednesday session “Conservation 2.0.”  I’ll be talking about using social networking to bring out the inner conservationist in all of us save wild animals. I’ll do it by telling some stories about extraordinary bloggers on WildlifeDirect like Antony Kasanga of Lion guardians’

If you are at PopTech please consider coming to this super session

The New Edge of Conservation with Katy Payne, Healy Hamilton, and Paula Kahumbu
New tools are improving ecological conservation efforts like never before. Hear from three leading practitioners as they describe how advanced technologies are helping us amplify, protect, and support efforts to preserve biodiversity around the world. Guest presenters toiling on the front-line of conservation work will share insights, stories about elephants and whales and seahorses, and lessons learned on everything from incorporating emerging technologies to communicating the principles of conservation to children.

Here’s a sneak peak about the speakers

Cheryl Heller

Cheryl is a writer, designer and communication strategist who helps clients integrate socially responsible behavior into sustainable brand communication and promotional programs. Her firm, Heller Communication Design, has developed a process through which corporations can play a leading role in alleviating the social and environmental issues facing the world, through programs that are both easy and profitable for them.

Cheryl has written articles for Communication Arts, ID Magazine, Graphis Magazine and The Design Management Journal. She wrote a book for the AIGA on the best process for preserving innovation within corporations. Recently she wrote the lead story on creative strategy for Adobe’s online magazine, Proxy.

She has been profiled in articles in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Graphis magazine, Communication Arts, ID magazine, How magazine, Print and PDN.

Dr. Healy Hamilton

Dr. Healy Hamilton is a biodiversity scientist at the California Academy of Sciences, and adjunct professor in the Department of Geography at San Francisco State University. She is the founding director of the Center for Biodiversity Research (CBR), a program that integrates biological and geospatial data for biodiversity research, conservation and education. Dr. Hamilton and the staff at CBR conduct research into species response to climate change and make it available for large landscape conservation planning.

Katy Payne

If anyone can artfully explain how a herd of elephants is like a Quaker meeting, it is animal communication researcher Katy Payne. Payne has been studying the sounds and languages of African elephants and humpback whales—two of the world’s largest animals—for decades, but she’s also been listening to their silences. Her discoveries have led her to fascinating meditations on stillness, cognition, and how acoustic phenomena shape relationships and communities. In 1999 she founded the Elephant Listening Project to help ensure her subjects’ future. Through sound and video clips, her research team aims to monitor elephants’ welfare and movements, as well as track the effectiveness of conservation efforts. Payne is currently affiliated with the Bioacoustics Research Program at Cornell University’s Laboratory of Ornithology.

Paula Kahumbu (Yes, that’s me!)

Paula is an ecologist and a passionate tree hugger. She spent many years studying monkeys and elephants in Kenya and worked for the Kenya Wildlife Service on wildlife policy, trade and park management issues and later managed a quarry restoration company. She is passionate about Africa and conservation, saving wild species and wild places – all for a purely selfish reason, so that she can enjoy them. Her life goal is to revert the people of the world to loving nature, starting with Joshua her son.

Peter Durant will be drawing the entire conference as it happens to capture the stories in pictures. He’s amazing!